Hey, prime members, you can listen to Intelligence Matters ad-free on Amazon Music.

Download the app today.

This is Intelligence Matters with former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morel.

Brought to you by Lockheed Martin.

Your mission is ours.

The Supreme Leader, he was initially very skeptical of COVID-19.

He said it's not that big of a deal.

And then when so many top officials in Iran contracted it, he came out and essentially

alleged this was a conspiracy theory.

This was, you know, biological weapon, ostensibly launched by the United States to weaken Iran

and to weaken China.

And by calling it a biological weapon, he gave himself the pretext to appoint a revolutionary

guard commander rather than a physician to lead the task force against COVID-19.

So in my sense is that what's happening at least in the near term is not that this virus

is bringing down the Islamic Republic, but is accelerating Iran's transition to military

dictatorship.

On the COVID front, right, there's a possibility that the Iranians could look at the U.S.

being inwardly focused and perceive an opportunity.

Or at the same time see the president in some political trouble as a result of COVID here

and be somewhat fearful that he might want to pick a fight with them.

Early on when the world and obviously the United States was consumed in the early days of

the pandemic, Iran did launch, Iran's proxies and Iraq launched a military attack against

...